The DOI matches its Crossref record; 247 of the 249 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Sex differences in the ability to recognise non-verbal displays of emotion: A meta-analysis
Abstract
The present study aimed to quantify the magnitude of sex differences in humans' ability to accurately recognise non-verbal emotional displays. Studies of relevance were those that required explicit labelling of discrete emotions presented in the visual and/or auditory modality. A final set of 551 effect sizes from 215 samples was included in a multilevel meta-analysis. The results showed a small overall advantage in favour of females on emotion recognition tasks (d=0.19). However, the magnitude of that sex difference was moderated by several factors, namely specific emotion, emotion type (negative, positive), sex of the actor, sensory modality (visual, audio, audio-visual) and age of the participants. Method of presentation (computer, slides, print, etc.), type of measurement (response time, accuracy) and year of publication did not significantly contribute to variance in effect sizes. These findings are discussed in the context of social and biological explanations of sex differences in emotion recognition.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Considering the results from both the old analyses and new analyses together, there were sex differences indicating that females relative to males are more proficient in recognizing emotions (SMDs = 0.22–0.30; Merten, 2005; Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Thompson & Voyer, 2014
In the citing paper
“for Emotion recognition, the studies in the old analyses and new analyses (Merten, 2005; Thompson & Voyer, 2014) indicated that the sex differences favoring females are larger in countries with higher living conditions, but the evidence is weak.”
From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Thompson & Voyer, 2014
In the citing paper
“women perform better than men in tasks measuring face memory [1] and emotion recognition [2]”
From Effects of sex and gonadectomy on social investigation and social recognition in mice (2015) · cites this paper as [2]
Citations
Cites
Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences
Muller, K. E., & Cohen, J. (1989) · Technometrics · doi:10.2307/1270020 · Cited by 99,603
Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test
Egger, M., Smith, G. D., Schneider, M., & Minder, C. (1997) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.315.7109.629 · Cited by 56,722
Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.).
Lachenbruch, P. A., & Cohen, J. (1989) · Journal of the American Statistical Association · doi:10.2307/2290095 · Cited by 37,421
Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods.
Longford, N. T., Bryk, A. S., & Raudenbush, S. W. (1993) · Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · doi:10.2307/2075823 · Cited by 18,773
Borenstein, M., Hedges, L. V., Higgins, J. P. T., & Rothstein, H. R. (2009) · doi:10.1002/9780470743386 · Cited by 14,225
Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods
Davidian, M. (2003) · Journal of the American Statistical Association · doi:10.1198/jasa.2003.s288 · Cited by 13,820
Desikan, R. S., Ségonne, F., Fischl, B., Quinn, B. T., Dickerson, B. C., Blacker, D., Buckner, R. L., Dale, A. M., Maguire, R. P., Hyman, B. T., et al. (2006) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.01.021 · Cited by 13,324
Borenstein, M., Hedges, L. V., Higgins, J. P. T., & Rothstein, H. R. (2021) · doi:10.1002/9781119558378 · Cited by 9,799
(2000) · Cited by 9,198
The file drawer problem and tolerance for null results.
Rosenthal, R. (1979) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.86.3.638 · Cited by 9,068
Research works printed but not linked: 20
- *Barth J. M., 1997, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 43, 107
- 10.1037/0022-3514.37.11.2049 · DOI
- Bremner J. D., 2001, Psychopharmacology Bulletin, 35, 55
- *Brunori P., 1979, Italian Journal of Psychology, 6, 265
- *Daly E. M., 1980, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 26, 25
- 10.1016/S02782626(03)00008-3 · DOI
- *Giovannini D., 1981, Italian Journal of Psychology, 8, 95
- Hox J. J., 2003, Multilevel modeling: Methodological advances, issues, and applications, 90
- *Kombos N. A., 1985, Educational & Psychological Research, 5, 19
- *Kozel N. J., 1969, Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 4, 39
- *MacCann C., 2011, Psihologijske Teme, 20, 393
- *Maxim L. A., 2003, Facta Universitatis - Series Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology and History, 10, 745
- *Morgado I. A., 1993, Studia Psychologica, 35, 73
- 10.1037/0021-843X.105.2.271 · DOI
- *Nowicki S. Jr, 1998, Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 124, 39
- Raudenbush S. W., 2011, HLM 7: Hierarchical linear and nonlinear modeling user's manual
- Reber A. S., 2001, Dictionary of psychology
- 10.1037/0022-0167.27.2.150 · DOI
- 10.1037/0021-843X.89.3.428 · DOI
- 10.1037/0022-3514.32.6.1068 · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Sex differences in anxiety and depression clinical perspectives
Altemus, M., Sarvaiya, N., & Neill Epperson, C. (2014) · Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.yfrne.2014.05.004 · Cited by 1,413
“For example, adaptive behavioral differences in terms of childrearing seem to include, in females, superior social cognition and capacity for attunement with others, important for cognitive and social development of offspring (Halpern, 2007; Gur et al., 2012; Thompson and Voyer, 2014).”
BackgroundEmpathy: Gender effects in brain and behavior
Christov-Moore, L., Simpson, E. A., Coudé, G., Grigaityte, K., Iacoboni, M., & Ferrari, P. F. (2014) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.09.001 · Cited by 1,137
“However, meta-analyses examining gender and sex differences in empathy provide results supporting fairly stable gender differences across a broad range of measures (e.g., Cohn, 1991; Eisenberg and Lennon, 1983; Feingold, 1994; Hall, 1978, 1984; Hoffman, 1977; O’Brien et al., 2013; Thompson and Voyer, 2014; although, f…”
BackgroundResultInfluentialEvaluating gender similarities and differences using metasynthesis.
Zell, E., Križan, Z., & Teeter, S. R. (2015) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/a0038208 · Cited by 465
Eliot, L., Ahmed, A., Khan, H., & Patel, J. Y. (2021) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.02.026 · Cited by 379
Estrogen, Stress, and Depression: Cognitive and Biological Interactions
Albert, K. M., & NEWHOUSE, P. A. (2019) · Annual Review of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-050718-095557 · Cited by 373
The reality and evolutionary significance of human psychological sex differences
Archer, J. (2019) · Biological Reviews · doi:10.1111/brv.12507 · Cited by 291
Health care providers' judgments in chronic pain: the influence of gender and trustworthiness
Schäfer, G., Prkachin, K. M., Kaseweter, K., & Williams, A. C. D. C. (2016) · Pain · doi:10.1097/j.pain.0000000000000536 · Cited by 203
“Lastly, gender differences between clinicians and students may have affected responses but are by no means clear.(37,56) Strengths of the study include the use of video rather”
BackgroundCanetto, S. S., & Chen, J. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108561716.042 · Cited by 194
Age and Gender Differences in Emotion Recognition
Abbruzzese, L., Magnani, N., Robertson, I. H., & Mancuso, M. (2019) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02371 · Cited by 172
“, 2018); for instance, a meta-analysis (Thompson and Voyer, 2014) showed that the largest sex differences were for teenagers and young adults, while other studies underlined that females performed better than males in recognizing emotions in middle and older age (Demenescu et al.”
BackgroundResultSocial cognition in schizophrenia in comparison to bipolar disorder: A meta-analysis
Bora, E., & Pantelis, C. (2016) · Schizophrenia Research · doi:10.1016/j.schres.2016.04.018 · Cited by 165
“Females have been reported to modestly outperformmales in many of the social cognitive tasks in normal populations (Kirkland et al., 2013; Thompson and Voyer, 2014).”
BackgroundWhat Drives the Smile and the Tear: Why Women Are More Emotionally Expressive Than Men
Fischer, A. H., & LaFrance, M. (2014) · Emotion Review · doi:10.1177/1754073914544406 · Cited by 170
Sex differences in facial emotion recognition across varying expression intensity levels from videos
Wingenbach, T. S. H., Ashwin, C., & Brosnan, M. (2018) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0190634 · Cited by 150
Meta-analysis reveals a lack of sexual dimorphism in human amygdala volume
Marwha, D., Halari, M., & Eliot, L. (2016) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.12.021 · Cited by 127
“For example, the difference in emotion recognition ability between women and men is a mere d=0.19 according to meta-analysis of 215 distinct samples (Thompson and Voyer, 2014).”
InfluentialSex differences in facial emotion perception ability across the lifespan
Olderbak, S. G., Wilhelm, O., Hildebrandt, A., & Quoidbach, J. (2018) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699931.2018.1454403 · Cited by 125
“A recent meta-analysis showed the largest sex differences were for teenagers and young adults (13–30 years), with smaller sex difference for children ( 13 years of age) and persons older than 30 years (Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialGender Differences in the Recognition of Vocal Emotions
Lausen, A., & Schacht, A. (2018) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00882 · Cited by 125
“…Hall, 1978; Collignon et al., 2010; Kret and de Gelder, Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 14 June 2018 | Volume 9 | Article 882 2012; Thompson and Voyer, 2014; Wingenbach et al., 2018) and emotional prosody in particular (e.g., Bonebright et al., 1996; Scherer et al., 2001; Paulmann…”
BackgroundSex differences in social cognition: the case of face processing
Proverbio, A. M. (2017) · Journal of Neuroscience Research · doi:10.1002/jnr.23817 · Cited by 110
“…are provided with a greater ability to decipher the emotions through facial expressions (see, e.g., Proverbio et al., 2006, 2007; Hall et al., 2010; Thompson and Voyer, 2014) or nonverbal communication (Hall et al., 1978) and are more inclined to and more competent in expressing their emotional…”
BackgroundHatak, I., & Zhou, H. (2019) · Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice · doi:10.1177/1042258719867559 · Cited by 122
“…on biological sex differences demonstrates that some sex differences that promote reproductive success in women are associated with superior social cognition and capacity for attunement with others (Thompson & Voyer, 2014), which, in turn, are critical for monetary entrepreneurial success.”
BackgroundRecognition thresholds for static and dynamic emotional faces.
Calvo, M. G., Avero, P., Fernández-Martín, A., & Recio, G. (2016) · Emotion · doi:10.1037/emo0000192 · Cited by 104
Griffiths, S., Jarrold, C., Penton‐Voak, I. S., Woods, A. T., Skinner, A., & Munafo, M. R. (2017) · Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · doi:10.1007/s10803-017-3091-7 · Cited by 109
“This may have influenced our results, as females have been shown to perform better at emotion recognition tasks (Thompson and Voyer 2014).”
ResultPang, C., Li, W., Zhou, Y., Gao, T.-Y., & Han, S.-H. (2023) · Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience · doi:10.1093/scan/nsad008 · Cited by 101
“We expected higher rating scores in women than in men, given the results of previous studies of empathic ability across different cultural samples (Davis, 1980; Eisenberg and Lennon, 1983; Thompson and Voyer, 2014).”
ResultInfluentialMcDonald, B., & Kanske, P. (2023) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-023-47747-9 · Cited by 117
“However, when taken together, previous findings appear to suggest that women have a slight advantage in detecting affective facial expressions 7 , recognising vocal emotions 40 , and understanding body language/emotional posture 41 .”
BackgroundSex differences in the social brain and in social cognition
Proverbio, A. M. (2021) · Journal of Neuroscience Research · doi:10.1002/jnr.24787 · Cited by 88
End-to-End Speech Emotion Recognition With Gender Information
Sun, T.-W. (2020) · IEEE Access · doi:10.1109/access.2020.3017462 · Cited by 88
“[ 49] iv) Therefore, if gender information is added.”
BackgroundVocal Communication of Emotion
Laukka, P. (2017) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_562-1 · Cited by 87
Schlegel, K., Boone, R. T., & Hall, J. A. (2017) · Journal of Nonverbal Behavior · doi:10.1007/s10919-017-0249-0 · Cited by 84
“There are several published meta-analyses that used MLM to account for nesting (e.g., Acar and Sen 2013; Allen et al. 2009; Thompson and Voyer 2014).”
BackgroundMethodSex differences in emoji use, familiarity, and valence
Jones, L. L., Wurm, L. H., Norville, G. A., & Mullins, K. L. (2020) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2020.106305 · Cited by 91
Preti, A., Vellante, M., & Петретто, Д. Р. (2017) · Cognitive Neuropsychiatry · doi:10.1080/13546805.2017.1300091 · Cited by 82
“Lack of gender-related DIF favours the use of the Eyes Test in the investigation of gender differences in empathy and social cognition (on this topic, see Geary, 2002; Kret & De Gelder, 2012; Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
MethodGoumon, S., & Špinka, M. (2016) · Animal Cognition · doi:10.1007/s10071-015-0950-5 · Cited by 78
Effects of sex and gonadectomy on social investigation and social recognition in mice
Karlsson, S. A., Haziri, K., Hansson, E., Kettunen, P., & Westberg, L. (2015) · BMC Neuroscience · doi:10.1186/s12868-015-0221-z · Cited by 72
“Human studies indicate that women perform better than men in tasks measuring face memory [1] and emotion recognition [2].”
BackgroundEffects of Age and Hearing Loss on the Recognition of Emotions in Speech
Christensen, J. A., Sis, J. L., Kulkarni, A. M., & Chatterjee, M. (2019) · Ear and Hearing · doi:10.1097/aud.0000000000000694 · Cited by 72
“Erwin et al. (1992) and Thompson and Voyer (2014) both reported a female advantage for negative emotions (facial and vocal emotions in Thompson & Voyer 2014, facial emotions only in Erwin et al. 1992); however, a ceiling effect in numerous studies of positive emotions led Thompson and Voyer to…”
BackgroundResultSocial cognition and sex: Are men and women really different?
Tella, M. D., Miti, F., Ardito, R. B., & Adenzato, M. (2020) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2020.110045 · Cited by 74
Zhang, M., Xu, S., Chen, Y., Lin, Y., Ding, H., & Zhang, Y. (2021) · Autism · doi:10.1177/1362361321995725 · Cited by 74
“Prior studies have discussed gender differences in emotion recognition abilities in both typical development and ASC (Kothari et al., 2013; Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
Young, K. S., Parsons, C. E., Stein, A. L., Vuust, P., Craske, M. G., & Kringelbach, M. L. (2016) · Behavioural Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2016.09.012 · Cited by 70
Self-protection as an adaptive female strategy
Benenson, J. F., Webb, C. E., & Wrangham, R. W. (2021) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x21002417 · Cited by 71
Women are better at seeing faces where there are none: an ERP study of face pareidolia
Proverbio, A. M., & Galli, J. (2016) · Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience · doi:10.1093/scan/nsw064 · Cited by 71
“Consistent with this hypothesis, numerous studies have demonstrated that women have a greater ability to decipher emotions through facial expressions (Proverbio et al., 2006; Hall et al., 2010; Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
ResultPrentice, F., Hobson, H., Spooner, R. L., & Murphy, J. (2022) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104808 · Cited by 75
“Conversely, women tend to show an advantage over men in the processing and recognition of their own and other ’ s emotions (e.g., Thompson and Voyer, 2014); women outperform men on the decoding of nonverbal communications, especially in the recognition of others ’ facial expressions (DePaulo et…”
The Nomological Network of Emotion Recognition Ability
Schlegel, K., Fontaine, J. R. J., & Scherer, K. R. (2017) · European Journal of Psychological Assessment · doi:10.1027/1015-5759/a000396 · Cited by 70
Rutter, L. A., Dodell‐Feder, D., Vahia, I. V., Forester, B. P., Ressler, K. J., Wilmer, J. B., & Germine, L. T. (2019) · Journal of Experimental Psychology General · doi:10.1037/xge0000559 · Cited by 58
“An additional meta-analysis showed that the largest sex differences in ER occur in teenagers and young adults, with smaller sex differences in children under 13 and adults over 30 (Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
MethodConnolly, H. L., Lefevre, C. E., Young, A. W., & Lewis, G. J. (2018) · Emotion · doi:10.1037/emo0000446 · Cited by 59
Accurate interpersonal perception
Hall, J. A., Mast, M. S., & West, T. V. (2016) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9781316181959.001 · Cited by 58
Empathy costs: Negative emotional bias in high empathisers
Chikovani, G., Babuadze, L., Iashvili, N., Gvalia, T., & Surguladze, S. (2015) · Psychiatry Research · doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2015.07.001 · Cited by 64
“In a similar vein, a meta-analysis (Thompson and Voyer, 2014) reported that sex differences in emotion recognition were larger in recognition of negative than positive emotions.”
Categorical emotion recognition from voice improves during childhood and adolescence
Grosbras, M., Ross, P. D., & Belin, P. (2018) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-018-32868-3 · Cited by 57
A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox
Herlitz, A., Hönig, I., Hedebrant, K., & Asperholm, M. (2025) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/17456916231202685 · Cited by 59
“Finally, for Emotion recognition, the studies in the old analyses and new analyses (Merten, 2005; Thompson & Voyer, 2014) indicated that the sex differences favoring females are larger in countries with higher living conditions, but the evidence is weak.”
InfluentialRecognizing Emotions through Facial Expressions: A Largescale Experimental Study
Dores, A. R., Barbosa, F., Queirós, C. M. L., Carvalho, I. P., & Griffiths, M. D. (2020) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph17207420 · Cited by 63
“The (small) advantage in favor of women on emotion recognition, moderated by factors such as the specific emotions, emotion type, sex of the actor, among others, has been reported in the literature (see [56] for a review).”
BackgroundDeckert, M., Schmoeger, M., Auff, E., & Willinger, U. (2019) · Psychological Research · doi:10.1007/s00426-019-01197-z · Cited by 61
Young children’s picture-books as a forum for the socialization of emotion
Garner, P. W., & Parker, T. S. (2018) · Journal of Early Childhood Research · doi:10.1177/1476718x18775760 · Cited by 39
“Gender differences favoring females in empathy across varying types of measures have been consistently reported (Thompson and Voyer, 2014).”
BackgroundPicou, E. M., Singh, G., Goy, H., Russo, F., Hickson, L. M. H., Oxenham, A. J., Buono, G. H., Ricketts, T. A., & Launer, S. (2018) · Trends in Hearing · doi:10.1177/2331216518803215 · Cited by 55
“…(Chatterjee et al., 2015; Zuckerman, Lipets, Koivumaki, & Rosenthal, 1975) on interindividual emotion perception, particularly as they interact with characteristics of the listener such as age and gender (Ebner et al., 2010; Riediger, Voelkle, Ebner, & Lindenberger, 2011; Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
BackgroundMemorable Experiences with Sad Music—Reasons, Reactions and Mechanisms of Three Types of Experiences
Eerola, T., & Peltola, H. (2016) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0157444 · Cited by 63
“The present study cannot pursue the putative explanations, but at least the gender roles and emotion recognition advantage by women [48] are consistent with the differences observed.”
ResultGender differences in interpersonal accuracy
Hall, J. A., Gunnery, S. D., & Horgan, T. G. (2016) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9781316181959.015 · Cited by 49
What does the Managing Emotions branch of the MSCEIT add to the MATRICS consensus cognitive battery?
DeTore, N. R., Mueser, K. T., & McGurk, S. R. (2018) · Schizophrenia Research · doi:10.1016/j.schres.2018.02.018 · Cited by 42
Lower digit ratio and higher endogenous testosterone are associated with lower empathic accuracy
Nitschke, J. P., & Bartz, J. A. (2019) · Hormones and Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2019.104648 · Cited by 41
Ramachandra, V., & Longacre, H. (2021) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2021.111249 · Cited by 41
Feng, Q., Luo, H., Li, W., Chen, T., & Song, N. (2023) · Heliyon · doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e16237 · Cited by 59
“As Thompson and Voyer [70] found in their study, women outperformed men on decoding nonverbal communications, especially in the recognition of others’ facial expressions.”
BackgroundThe Effect of Age, Race, and Sex on Social Cognitive Performance in Individuals With Schizophrenia
Pinkham, A. E., Kelsven, S., Kouros, C. D., Harvey, P. D., & Penn, D. L. (2017) · The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease · doi:10.1097/nmd.0000000000000654 · Cited by 40
“19), females display an emotion recognition advantage relative to males (Thompson and Voyer, 2014).”
BackgroundKamboj, S. K., Krol, K. M., & Curran, H. V. (2015) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0122311 · Cited by 40
Facial and prosodic emotion recognition in social anxiety disorder
Tseng, H., Huang, Y., Chen, J.-T., Liang, K.-Y., Lin, C.-C., & Chen, S. (2017) · Cognitive Neuropsychiatry · doi:10.1080/13546805.2017.1330190 · Cited by 41
“Our HC group was gender – (17 men and 14 women) and age – (range of age: 21–56 in HC; 18–57 in SAD) matched to our SAD group to minimise the potential confounding effects on emotion recognition (Sullivan, Ruffman, & Hutton, 2007; Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
Schultebraucks, K., Deuter, C. E., Duesenberg, M., Schulze, L., Hellmann‐Regen, J., Domke, A., Lockenvitz, L., Kuehl, L. K., Otte, C., & Wingenfeld, K. (2016) · Psychopharmacology · doi:10.1007/s00213-016-4380-0 · Cited by 36
Brain Development and Physical Aggression
Eliot, L. (2021) · Current Anthropology · doi:10.1086/711705 · Cited by 44
Individual differences in emoji comprehension: Gender, age, and culture
Chen, Y.-H., Yang, X., Howman, H., & Filik, R. (2024) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0297379 · Cited by 37
Investigating individual differences in emotion recognition ability using the ERAM test
Laukka, P., Bänziger, T., Israelsson, A., Cortes, D. S., Tornberg, C., Scherer, K. R., & Fischer, H. (2021) · Acta Psychologica · doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103422 · Cited by 43
“Women consistently perform better than men in emotion recognition tasks, although the effect sizes are usually small (Hall et al., 2016; Thompson & Voyer, 2014), and we therefore hypothesized that women would perform better also on the ERAM test.”
InfluentialPalcu, J., Sudkamp, J., & Florack, A. (2017) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00881 · Cited by 34
“…in men’s and women’s sensitivity to social information with women usually displaying stronger reactions to emotional stimuli (Lithari et al., 2010; Thompson and Voyer, 2014), a quicker and more accurate identification of facial expressions (McBain et al., 2009; Donges et al., 2012) and a…”
BackgroundThe impact of empathy and reappraisal on emotional intensity recognition
Naor, N., Shamay‐Tsoory, S., Sheppes, G., & Okon‐Singer, H. (2017) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699931.2017.1372366 · Cited by 36
“Yet, a recent meta-analysis by Thompson and Voyer (2014) showed that the target’s gender had an impact on emotion recognition abilities, especially for males.”
BackgroundVocal Communication of Emotion
Laukka, P. (2020) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_562 · Cited by 35
Döllinger, L., Laukka, P., Högman, L., Bänziger, T., Makower, I., Fischer, H., & Hau, S. (2021) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.708867 · Cited by 37
Interpreting Infant Emotional Expressions: Parenthood has Differential Effects on Men and Women
Parsons, C. E., Young, K. S., Elmholdt, E.-M. J., Stein, A. L., & Kringelbach, M. L. (2016) · Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology · doi:10.1080/17470218.2016.1141967 · Cited by 36
“A recent meta-analysis demonstrated that, overall, females have a small advantage in emotion recognition (Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
Morningstar, M. A., Ly, V. Y., Feldman, L. S., & Dirks, M. A. (2018) · Journal of Nonverbal Behavior · doi:10.1007/s10919-018-0274-7 · Cited by 36
Strekalova, Y. A., Kong, S., Kleinheksel, A. J., & Gerstenfeld, A. (2019) · Nurse Education Today · doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2019.04.004 · Cited by 37
Navarra‐Ventura, G., Vicent-Gil, M., Serra-Blasco, M., Massons, C., Crosas, J. M., Cobo, J., Jubert, A., Jódar, M., Fernández‐Gonzalo, S., Goldberg, X., et al. (2021) · Comprehensive Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.comppsych.2021.152258 · Cited by 35
Measuring two aspects of emotion recognition ability: Accuracy vs. sensitivity
Lyusin, D., & Ovsyannikova, V. (2015) · Learning and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2015.04.010 · Cited by 34
Lomoriello, A. S., Meconi, F., Rinaldi, I., & Sessa, P. (2018) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01824 · Cited by 37
“…see, e.g., Schieman, 2000; Phillips et al., 2002) but see also Grühn et al., 2008; for the gender variable see, e.g., Eisenberg and Lennon, 1983; Cohn, 1991; Feingold, 1994; Brown, 2001; O’Brien et al., 2013; Thompson and Voyer, 2014; but see also Lamm et al., 2007 for contrasting findings).”
ResultGeary, D. (2021) · Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.02.020 · Cited by 23
Exploring the Relationship Between Fiction Reading and Emotion Recognition
Schwering, S. C., Ghaffari-Nikou, N. M., Zhao, F., Niedenthal, P. M., & MacDonald, M. C. (2021) · Affective Science · doi:10.1007/s42761-021-00034-0 · Cited by 37
The effect of sex on social cognition and functioning in schizophrenia
Ferrer-Quintero, M., Green, M. F., Horan, W. P., Penn, D. L., Kern, R. S., & Lee, J. (2021) · Schizophrenia · doi:10.1038/s41537-021-00188-7 · Cited by 29
Caretaker attitudes toward swine euthanasia1
Campler, M. R., Pairis-Garcia, M. D., Rault, J., Coleman, G. J., & Arruda, A. G. (2018) · Translational Animal Science · doi:10.1093/tas/txy015 · Cited by 29
Yawning Detection Sensitivity and Yawning Contagion
Chan, M. H.-M., & Tseng, C. (2017) · i-Perception · doi:10.1177/2041669517726797 · Cited by 29
“Second, females were reported to excel in emotion recognition tasks (Hall & Matsumoto, 2004; McClure, 2000; Montagne, Kessels, Frigerio, de Haan, & Perrett, 2005; Thompson & Voyer, 2014) and were identified as being better at expressing their own emotions than men.”
BackgroundTheory of mind in users of anabolic androgenic steroids
Vaskinn, A., Hauger, L. E., & Bjørnebekk, A. (2020) · Psychopharmacology · doi:10.1007/s00213-020-05603-y · Cited by 30
Wearing N95, Surgical, and Cloth Face Masks Compromises the Perception of Emotion
Langbehn, A. T., Yermol, D. A., Zhao, F., Thorstenson, C. A., & Niedenthal, P. M. (2022) · Affective Science · doi:10.1007/s42761-021-00097-z · Cited by 28
“The moderating role of gender of the participant-perceiver was also examined since a recent metaanalysis confirmed that women are on average more accurate than men in recognizing facial expressions (Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
BackgroundYoung, K. S., Parsons, C. E., LeBeau, R. T., Tabak, B. A., Sewart, A. R., Stein, A. L., Kringelbach, M. L., & Craske, M. G. (2016) · Psychological Assessment · doi:10.1037/pas0000382 · Cited by 28
“…greater accuracy of emotion identification among vocal cues in females compared with males (Belin et al., 2008; Bonebright, Thompson, & Leger, 1996; Thompson & Voyer, 2014), although other studies have demonstrated no such gender differences (Lima, Alves, Scott, & Castro, 2014; Raithel &…”
ResultEmpathy Variation in General Practice: A Survey among General Practitioners in Denmark
Charles, J. A., Ahnfeldt-Mollerup, P., Søndergaard, J., & Kristensen, T. (2018) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph15030433 · Cited by 28
“However, several studies suggest that gender differences in empathy in favor of females are relatively consistent [58,59].”
BackgroundEvolutionary perspective on sex differences in the expression of neurological diseases
Geary, D. C. (2018) · Progress in Neurobiology · doi:10.1016/j.pneurobio.2018.06.001 · Cited by 27
Lin, Y., Ding, H.-W., & Zhang, Y. (2021) · Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research · doi:10.1044/2021_jslhr-20-00553 · Cited by 21
“…offspring to become securely attached, while the fitness threat hypothesis expects female superiority to be selective to negative emotions, which calls for action on women to eliminate the potential threat to infant survival (Hampson et al., 2006; Menezes et al., 2017; Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
InfluentialCalling on clinicians to get social and emotional
McDonald, S., Wearne, T. A., & Kelly, M. (2022) · The Clinical Neuropsychologist · doi:10.1080/13854046.2022.2085176 · Cited by 30
“A number of meta-analyses conclude that females are more accurate in emotion recognition relative to males (Filkowski et al., 2017; Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
BackgroundMusical emotions affect memory for emotional pictures
Talamini, F., Eller, G., Vigl, J., & Zentner, M. R. (2022) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-022-15032-w · Cited by 27
Wong, H. K., & Estudillo, A. J. (2022) · Cognitive Research Principles and Implications · doi:10.1186/s41235-022-00438-x · Cited by 28
“In this vein, several studies underline the advantage of women in decoding emotions, not only in static stimuli (Olderbak et al., 2018; Thompson & Voyer, 2014), but also in dynamic stimuli (Wingenbach et al., 2018).”
BackgroundEmotional prosody recognition enhances and progressively complexifies from childhood to adolescence
Filippa, M., Lima, D., Grandjean, A., Labbé, C., Coll, S. Y., Gentaz, É., & Grandjean, D. (2022) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-022-21554-0 · Cited by 35
A study in affect: Predicting valence from fMRI data
Kim, J., Weber, C. E., Gao, C., Schulteis, S., Wedell, D. H., & Shinkareva, S. V. (2020) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107473 · Cited by 27
Neural activation in response to the two sides of emotion
An, S., Han, X., Wu, B., Shi, Z., Marks, M. J., Wang, S., Wu, X., & Han, S. (2018) · Neuroscience Letters · doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2018.07.011 · Cited by 25
“Female adults were tested to avoid the confounding of both sex differences in feeling and reporting emotion [18] and distinct brain activity in response to emotion in the two sexes [19,20].”
BackgroundEffects of executive function on age-related emotion recognition decline varied by sex
Pua, S.-Y., & Yu, R. (2024) · Social Science & Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117392 · Cited by 27
Emotional Intelligence & ICTs for Women and Equality
Papoutsi, C., Chaidi, I., Drigas, A. S., Skianis, C. A., & Karagiannidis, C. (2022) · Technium Social Sciences Journal · doi:10.47577/tssj.v27i1.5561 · Cited by 27
The role of hand gestures in emotion communication: Do type and size of gestures matter?
Asalıoğlu, E. N., & Göksun, T. (2022) · Psychological Research · doi:10.1007/s00426-022-01774-9 · Cited by 25
Prosocial behavior, social reward and affective state discrimination in adult male and female mice
Misiołek, K., Klimczak, M., Chrószcz, M., Szumiec, Ł., Bryksa, A., Przyborowicz, K., Parkitna, J. M. R., & Harda, Z. (2023) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-023-32682-6 · Cited by 25
Facial and Vocal Emotion Recognition in Adolescence: A Systematic Review
Zupan, B., & Eskritt, M. (2023) · Adolescent Research Review · doi:10.1007/s40894-023-00219-7 · Cited by 27
“Thompson and Voyer (2014) reported that this effect is particularly evident between the ages of 13 and 30, with the largest effect shown in the recognition of angry emotion expressions.”
Vasconcelos, M., Dias, M., Soares, A., & Pinheiro, A. (2017) · Journal of nonverbal behavior · doi:10.1007/s10919-017-0253-4
Regnoli, G. M., Tiano, G., & Rosa, B. D. (2024) · European Journal of Investigation in Health Psychology and Education · doi:10.3390/ejihpe14060121 · Cited by 29
“Overall, the highlighted limitations do not allow the results obtained to be generalized to the entire population of young Italian adults, so we suggest that prospective research consider increasing the representativeness of the sample in the future.”
BackgroundThe Social Shapes Test: A New Measure of Social Intelligence, Mentalizing, and Theory of Mind
Brown, M. I., Ratajska, A. M., Hughes, S. L., Fishman, J. B., Huerta, E., & Chabris, C. F. (2018) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2019.01.035 · Cited by 32
Individual Differences in Accurately Judging Personality From Text
Hall, J. A., Goh, J. X., Mast, M. S., & Hagedorn, C. (2015) · Journal of Personality · doi:10.1111/jopy.12170 · Cited by 29
Are many sex/gender differences really power differences?
Galinsky, A. D., Turek, A., Agarwal, G., Anicich, E. M., Rucker, D. D., Bowles, H. R., Liberman, N., Levin, C., & Magee, J. C. (2024) · PNAS Nexus · doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae025 · Cited by 27
“For example, research shows that men tend to be more risk-taking (6) and better at mental rotation (7), whereas women tend to be more susceptible to social influence (8) and better at face (9) and emotion recognition (10).”
BackgroundVisser-Keizer, A. C., Westerhof-Evers, H. J., Gerritsen, M. J. J., van der Naalt, J., & Spikman, J. M. (2016) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0166995 · Cited by 26
“Meta-analyses in healthy subjects showed that the ability to recognize fear from faces is influenced by gender and age: females outperform males and older subjects perform poorer than younger subjects [9,10].”
BackgroundResultSensitivity to emotional scene content outside the focus of attention
Calvo, M. G., Gutiérrez-García, A., & Líbano, M. D. (2015) · Acta Psychologica · doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2015.08.002 · Cited by 23
Rutter, L. A., Passell, E. J., Scheuer, L., & Germine, L. T. (2020) · Journal of Affective Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.jad.2020.07.006 · Cited by 22
“Despite some differences between emotion categories, in general, females show enhanced facial emotion recognition abilities compared to males (Hall, 1978, Herlitz and Loven, 2009; Kret and DeGelder, 2012; Thompson and Voyer, 2014; Wingenbach et al., 2018).”
Background
Metadata
- Authors
- Thompson, A. E., & Voyer, D.
- Affiliations
- University of New Brunswick (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Voyer, Daniel
- Venue
- Cognition and Emotion
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2014-01-08
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1164-1195
- ISSN
- 0269-9931 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-0600
- OpenAlex
- W2023112595
- Cited by
- 476
- References
- 249
- Citations by year
- 2026: 32 · 2025: 49 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 47 · 2021: 47 · 2020: 79 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 33 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 4
- FWCI
- 2.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cognition & Emotion (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Keywords
- sex differences, emotion recognition, facial expressions, vocal emotion, sensory modalities, age effects
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Age Factors, Child, Emotions, Facial Expression, Female, Humans, Male, Photic Stimulation, Sex Characteristics, Recognition, Psychology, Young Adult
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
